Message to House: Free the Colombia Trade Agreement

by John Murphy

I have a Guest Observer op/ed in Roll Call today outlining the overwhelmingly strong case for the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement, which was shelved by the House of Representatives on April 10th.  In doing so, Congress tossed aside Congressional rules dating back to 1974 that ensure an up-or-down vote on trade agreements.  I want to spotlight one thing which is often overlooked:

...this decision amounts to reneging on the agreement brokered just one year ago, on May 10, 2007, between Congressional leaders and the Administration to include enforceable environmental and labor provisions in the pending free trade agreements with Peru, Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. This bipartisan deal was intended to break a decade-long stalemate on these provisions and ignite action on the stalled agreements.

Despite these expectations, the Peru agreement sat gathering dust for months until it received approval last December.

Yet when the administration sent implementing legislation for the Colombia trade agreement to Congress this spring, the House changed the rules of the game. Completely overlooked was the fact that the trade agreement with Colombia includes the exact same guarantees for worker rights and environmental protection as the Peru agreement, which in the end was approved by a huge bipartisan majority.

As U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab has pointed out, "They changed the rules not only for themselves but also for the Senate, for the administration, for the United States, and for our Colombian allies, unilaterally upending 34 years of U.S. trade law, policy and practice."

And beyond security and policy damage, NAM pointed out the economic realities yesterday:

The Department of Commerce estimates that “every single second that goes by without a vote on the Agreement costs roughly $22, and nearly $2 million every day.”

But what’s the real benefit of trade with Colombia for workers in the United States?
...
$671.61
...
That’s the value of U.S. manufactured goods exports to Colombia last year broken down for every manufacturing worker in the United States.

They encourage everyone to compare that number to the economic stimulus checks being sent this month.